After giving President William Ruto 48 hours to ensure that talks start or they will resume rallies, Azimio la Umoja One Kenya leader Raila Odinga put the truce between the government and the opposition to the test this week.
According to Mr. Odinga, the bipartisan committee’s discussions must start tomorrow, or Azimio will withdraw the agreement to end the protests.
The notification was sent shortly after a demand was made for the discussions to be completed within 30 days in order to address the post-election impasse in August 2022, among other issues.
If the committee doesn’t pick up its participation, the Azimio head stated they are prepared to look into alternative options.
Mr. Odinga cited their Kenya Kwanza counterparts’ reluctance to start talks and accused the ruling alliance of undermining last week’s ceasefire through a lack of goodwill.
“Now we are seeing signs of reluctance, saying they don’t have a quorum to begin discussions, and so on. We have given them today and tomorrow, and talks must start in earnest by Wednesday. If their delegation is not ready by Wednesday, we will treat that gentleman’s agreement as cancelled, and we will explore other options available to us as Azimio,” said Mr. Odinga.
He was speaking at a press conference on Monday held at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation headquarters in Nairobi, where he was joined by Martha Karua, the leader of Narc Kenya, Jeremiah Kioni, the secretary general of the Jubilee Party, and George Wajackoyah, the leader of the Roots Party.
The removal of Eldas MP Adan Keynan from the committee, Mr. Odinga said, was a smokescreen to appease them as the nation was hosting prominent leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
“We acted in good faith last Thursday to call off the demonstrations because Kenya Kwanza had approached us and said they were ready for talks,” said Mr. Odinga. “We knew that the real reason was because visitors were coming to town and they did not want demonstrations at that time. But we did act in good faith ourselves because they said they were serious.”
Announcing they had chosen attorneys Muthomi Thiankolu for Kenya Kwanza and Paul Mwangi for Azimio as joint secretaries, the committee headed by MPs Otiende Amollo and George Murugara started engagements last Friday.
They also stated that both parties were committed to resolving the contentious issues, noting that progress had been made about whether the negotiations should be strictly parliamentary or involve other parties.
Mr. Amollo told on Monday said that the committee would convene on Wednesday.
“I hereby humbly and kindly invite you to a meeting of the bipartisan dialogue committee to be held on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, starting at 10 a.m. at the Bomas of Kenya,” reads the letter dated May 7 by the Rarieda MP to the 14 members and joint secretaries.
According to him, the meeting would pick up where it left off last week, with the framework agreement and related problems being finalised, as well as decisions regarding the format and length of the talks.
Boni Khalwale, a senator from Kakamega and a member of the committee, expressed optimism for successful negotiations this week. There is no turning back should the negotiations fail, according to his Nairobi counterpart, Edwin Sifuna, who expressed optimism that the meetings will result in concrete outcomes.